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Sunday, October 5, 2008

Open Source Think Tank Paris 2008: Day Two

Unfortunately, computer problems (my hard drive died) and travel have delayed my summary of the second day. First, we ended the first day with a magnificent dinner cruise on the Seine River. Our hosts, Alexandre and Celine arranged for a sommelier to select special wines for the cruise which meant that we had great wines from all over France. On the second day, we focused the brainstorming sessions on Open Source Licensing and the Definition of Open Source. The licensing discussion was lively, with the European attendees focusing on the challenges imposed by the number of open source licenses. During the licensing discussion, they were particularly interested in the effect of the Jacobsen decision which clarifies the enforceability of open source licenses in the US, an issue was viewed as settled in the European Union.

The discussion of the definition of open source ranged from who should control the definition to whether a new group, focused on commercial open source should be created to provide guidance about how to determine whether products (or companies) are “open source”. The consensus was that OSI definition has served the industry well and should continue to be the core definition and that a new non profit focused solely on commercial open source is unnecessary. The discussion about whether a company can be considered “open source” was very interesting. Most attendees agreed that it is very difficult to meaningfully designate a company as “open source” because most companies follow a variety of approaches to software development and distribution. The better approach is to focus on products as following an open source model. An interesting side note to this discussion was the conclusion that all companies are now following a “hybrid” business model which includes both proprietary and open source products. Even Microsoft is now part of this trend. This conclusion is consistent with the results of our 2008 Napa Open Source Think Tank that open source software is now becoming part of the mainstream. The final presentation was by Rudy Salles, the Vice President of the French National Assembly. Linagora had assisted the French National Assembly in implementing an open source environment and Mr. Salles discussed open source from the point of view of both a user and a policy maker.

The Open Source Think Tank Europe was a great success and was particularly useful in helping the US companies understand the European perspective. We hope to see you there next year!

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Just a reminder, these posts are not legal advice. This site is the personal blog of Mark Radcliffe and the opinions expressed are those of Mark Radcliffe and not those of his clients, DLA Piper or the clients of DLA Piper.

About Me

I earned a B.S. in Chemistry magna cum laude from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
I have been practicing law in Silicon Valley for over 25 years and am now a senior partner at DLA Piper. DLA Piper is a new global law firm formed in 2005 from the merger of three law firms. The firm now has 3600 lawyers in 25 countries and 65 cities. My practice is a mix of corporate securities and intellectual property. I work with many startups as well as large global companies. I have had the opportunity to work with companies in many industries, ranging from semiconductor to digital media to open source.
I am the General Counsel, pro bono, of the Open Source Initiative and I ran the "Users" committee reviewing the GPLv3 draft.